[sixxty7]

hi starter, i just finished installing a fresh motor on my 67 gto. i put in the starter, delco type. heres what i have, distributor to negative on coil. positive battery cable to large stud on starter, as well as the red wire. purple wire from harness to S side of solenoid on the starter. well when i hooked up the battery, the starter engaged immediatley. no keys in ignition. i could hear it spinning. now i swear the purple wire went to the s side of the terminal on the starter. thought i was wrong so i changed it to the other side. nothing, so i put it back on the S side of the solenoid. now it dosnt do anything. i have power to the car , radio headlights etc. but when i turn the key to the on position i dont hear anything. this was done with the starter hanging,bolts not even mounted. just to see if it would work. nothing. but power to everything else. i dont know if this means anything, but the last time the car was actually running i blew a rod in the number 1 cylinder. swear i had everything hooked up right. but i never seen the starter engage like it did as soon as i put the cables on the battery. i really can use some help here. i have just about mastered putting in the starter with ram air manifolds, and thats something i dont want to be doing all the time. not too much fun there! so if anybody can chime in i would really appreciate it. thanks...

[george kujanski]

Most likely when you tried it originally, the large battery cable terminal was touching the "S" terminal which would easily explain why the starter engaged when connecting the battery.

When testing the starter hanging free, it probably did not work because there was no ground connection to the starter housing.

George

[sixxty7]

no, two wires attached to the large post. purprle wire to the S terminal. i will look at it again. but i swear nothing was touching .everything was grounded correctly. distributor to negative on coil. purprle to S on solenoid. never seen the starter engage like it did when i hooked up the battery. like i said i will look at it again. but from what seen evrything looked good. if need be i will take ths starter offf to be checked. this starter worked fine before. why with the key engaged to the start position. i dont hear the starter do anything? starter is not mounted, but sitting on a jack stand. now what?

[george kujanski]

Again, if the starter is not bolted to the block, it will not work. If you don't have it mounted, you need to connect the starter housing to the battery negative using a battery jumper cable or large temporary cable.

George

[hillpc]

I agree with George about those being the very most likely items (accidental contact with S terminal, and it needs a ground [I use a jamper cable] to work just hanging.

But here's a weird one: Just this afternoon my buddy's 69 Firebird developed a "starter won't shut off" problem. Even with the key turned off. Disconnected the negative battery cable at the battery to shut it off. I even jumpered battery voltage to the starter solenoid S terminal [it spun of course; key off], and when I unhooked the wire, the starter continued to spin. Pulled battery cable off to stop it. Did it 6 out of 8 times. Unhooking the battery unlatches it again I spin it again. So I pulled the starter. Didn't notice anything catastrophic inside the solenoid when I disassembled it, but don't now what tiny details may hold clues.

We came upon this strange behavior after a drive home from a sudden one-time no-start condition, where there wasn't as much as a peep from the starter motor or its solenoid. We came back to pick it up and it fired right up. That seems to be a separate issue, maybe. I suspected ignition switch but making it do a no shut-off with the key out of the column has convinced me otherwise. I haven't run it on my garage floor yet.


Couldn't be the starter motor, as opposed to the solenolid, could it? We bought it a year and 2000 miles ago, rebuilt.

[6t7gto]

Hill,
i just had that happen with my 67.
turned the key to start and it didn't sound right.
removed the key and the starter stayed engaged.
removed the battery cable to stop it from spinning.
re-attached and started and ran fine.
got it home and removed the starter.
found the snap ring retainer on the nose of the starter had broken and caused the bendix drive to stay engaged.
picked up the replacement parts from a local starter rebuilder for $.30.
everything is fine now.

david

p.s didn't mean to hijack this thread.

[george kujanski]

The way it works is: as the solenoid pulls in, it forces the Bendix drive out to the flywheel. As the solenoid plunger bottoms, a large contact inside, connects the battery to the starter motor.

If the Bendix sticks out for some reason, such as the snap ring retainer, the electrical contact to the motor will stay connected, constantly spinning the motor.

George

[JDHolmes]

Starter must have a ground to the engine, hence the bolts.

take it out, connect negative charger cable to housing of starter, touch big bolt (+) and little bolt solenoid with the positive charger cable, starter should pull in and spin.

[sixxty7]

here an update. did as george said. with the with the starter grounded and resting on a jack stand. i turned the ignition on. sure enough everything worked fine. starter turned on when i turned the key. and disengaged when i turned off the key. everything seemed ok. so i disconnect battery cables. and mount starter to block. sure enough when i hooked up the battery cables, the starter engages. no keys in the ignition. i am starting to think i have a short. so i take out positve cable for inspection. nothing wrong that i can see. the harness looks ok as well. theres only two things different from before. the positve cable, as well as the harness wires now are going through the ram air cable tube. i also had the harness itself modified to ram air specs. m@h did this modification. its their harness. i am using a 1gauge wire for both battery cables. its a very tight fit going through that tube, but it does go through. i made sure none of the terminal wires to the starter were touching! everything semed ok until i mounted the starter back on the block. what do you guys think?

[sixxty7]

can,t figure this one out. i took off starter again, to check harness and battery cable. they both look fine. but this time i rerouted the positive cable. instead of going through the tube with the harness wires, i routed it outside of the tube. made sure starter wires were clear of each other. put the battery cables on the battery, and guess what, the starter didnt engage like it did before. put key in ignition and proceeded to crank up the car. no problems. i have the 1 gauge wire for the positve. i am thinking that it is too tight in that cable tube. 1 gauge wire with the harness wires. its pretty hard too get them both in that tube. maybe thats my issue, but all the wires are in like new condition. any thoughts on this? thanks again for the help.

[george kujanski]

From your description, it seems that the purple solenoid wire may be making contact with the battery cable in the tube somehow.

Somewhere, somehow, the solenoid wire is getting power from the battery cable after you assemble the starter onto the block.

George

[hillpc]

sixxty7, sounds like you have a short from positive juice onto your purple S wire somewhere. From the battery cable or the other red wire. I would go in yet again and inspect all of those cables with a fine-toothed comb and a bright light. If one shorts to the metal tube (if it's grounded), you could make a giant metal-melted mess, maybe start an insulation fire, and destroy your battery. In my opinion, there's no way the wires just being that close together, insulated, can inductively transfer enough current to energize the solenoid.

6t7gto and george k, thanks for that line of thinking about mechanical hanging up making the starter not stop. 6t7gto, you didn't hijack the thread; this could have been closely related. I just checked and the snap ring is fine, the starter parts all look good and the solenoid looks good too. I've disassembled and reassembled it all. It runs fine on the garage floor; 15 times so far. Since the "starter won't shut off" problem only happens with the starter in the car, I've concluded the starter gear is probably vertically too close to the flexplate, making it bind too tight for the solenoid return spring to pull it back out while running. I'll do the paperclip check advised in numerous other starter posts. I have a single 1/16" shim in there so far; this has seemed to cure a hot start problem that occurred earlier with no shim.

I've seen so much good advice in many of these posts from george k he should be called "master guru" or something...

[Old Goat 67]

That's what we do call him, but he would rather we donate to his retirement fund!